


Peeling Back the Layers

by WhatWouldLilyDo



Series: NurseyDex Week [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Closeted Character, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, White Privilege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-03 13:59:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11533689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatWouldLilyDo/pseuds/WhatWouldLilyDo
Summary: Learning to get along doesn't always come easily, but learning to understand each other definitely helps.





	1. Chowder's birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He didn't say for a reason and you forced it. Birthdays can be sensitive for some people, you know?”
> 
> Dex and Nursey talk after their fight on Chowder's birthday (parallel to [Fresh](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9337325) Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last day I'll be participating in NurseyDex week, because of various reasons, but to make up for it I'm posting two! (and who knows maybe I'll finally write these hockey games into the next chapter of Fresh to be posted and get it up before NurseyDex week is over because... reasons.)
> 
> Anyway, nominally the first is Nursey comforting Dex and the second is the other way around but actually this one I've tried to focus on both of them, and the next has some comfort from someone else as well
> 
> Content warnings for this chapter:  
> \- Grief//discussion of parental loss//mention of loss of a sibling  
> \- Implied family neglect (it's actually not true, but more on that next chapter)  
> \- Discussion of race and privilege etc.  
> \- Mention of homophobia

Will had figured out fairly early on that Nursey was messing with Chowder. It was slowly becoming their favorite game — to chirp their best friend who got worked up but still knew they liked him, while staying away from arguments with each other. Chowder didn’t seem like the sort of person who would hide his birthday for any reason other than to stop people making a fuss, so they figured that they could tease him about it without it causing any harm, and his reaction, though typically exaggerated, confirmed their suspicions. When Bitty found out anyway, though, more by their being too loud than anything else, Will suddenly doubted himself. He didn’t know everything about his new best friend and what if there was a reason that he had kept today a secret? What if their ability to turn the simplest of things into a competition and a fight had actually upset him? Will found himself struggling for breath as all the reasons he hated his own birthday flashed through his mind. So, he did the only thing that he could think of to keep his attention off his heart rate: he blamed Nursey.

“What the fuck. Chill, Poindexter, it's not—”

“He didn't say for a reason and you forced it. Birthdays can be sensitive for some people, you know?”

“For fuck’s sake, I  _ know _ .”

“Oh, Chowder, honey did you not—” Bitty cut in.

“I just didn't want anyone to make a fuss. I do like my birthday.”

Will wanted to relax, but now that the doubts were swarming around his mind, he couldn’t help but worry that Chowder was just saying that, and the worst thing was that Nursey was still looking at him with that intense stare that he got sometimes when he wanted to make Will admit something. “Still your fault,” Will muttered in response to the stare.

“Lay off it. I wasn't even actually going to say anything. I'm not kidding when I say I know birthdays can be a sensitive thing.” When Will snorted, Nursey snapped. “Go on, then. What's your issue with birthdays?  My parents have  _ literally  _ given each other presents on my birthday before and forgotten me. So don't try and preach to me about how they can be 'sensitive for some people'.”

His breath caught. It was the worst question to be asked for him anyway, but how could he reply when it would only look like he was trying to one-up Nursey? Not to mention that it was something he never talked about, and he definitely didn’t want to start here, with an audience no less. “I don't— Fuck you,” he stormed out, letting the door slam behind him.

Nursey’s words echoed in his mind as he walked down the road. Could it be true that the boy he had considered a spoiled brat, had actually been forgotten by his own parents on his birthday?

“Dex!”

It was Nursey’s voice, and Will scowled because this was the last thing he wanted to deal with when he had the alternative option of curling up in bed and crying because he missed his twin sister.

“Will, wait up. Please. I was just saying—”

Will snapped. “You were just saying what? That your parents don’t always buy you everything? Well at least you have fucking parents, Nurse, okay? You didn’t spend your twelfth birthday thinking about their  _ funeral.  _ You haven't spent every year since reliving their death. ”

Will closed his eyes as soon as he had said it so that he didn’t have to look at Nursey’s reaction, or see that pitying look he knew all too well. He heard the scrape of pavement as if Nursey had started to trip, but the thud of him hitting the ground never came.

“Will.” Nursey’s voice was close. “Will, look at me, please.”

Will squeezed his eyes tighter and shook his head. Warm fingers brushed against his cheekbone, and then he was pulled into a hug where he ended up crying into Nursey’s shoulder.

“I’m so sorry,” Nursey murmured.

Will hiccupped. “Me too.”

“Can we — Will, we really need to talk about this. Not about your parents, if you don’t want to, but about us fighting like that when C—”

“Yeah.” Will pulled away. He felt sick to the stomach. “Yeah, let’s go home and talk.”

* * *

It had now been almost two months since they had shared a bed, despite having vaguely talked about a potential friends with benefits situation, but they now both curled up on Nursey’s bed, close enough that they didn’t have to watch the other’s expression when dealing with the difficult conversation.

“If we’re going to keep fucking, we have to sort our shit out in private and talk about things before we end up yelling at each other,” Nursey said into Will’s hair. “You’re the one who said that when we first started.”

It was a funny thing to say when they still hadn’t had sex since that first time; still not done more than occasional kissing after a fight or a kegster since that conversation. Will knew what Nursey meant, though. “I’m sorry. I think one minute we were just messing about and the next I was thinking about— Did Bitty come and talk to you earlier?”

“This afternoon? Yeah.”

“You think I’m privileged. You’re always going on about it around other people in the team, but—” He screwed his eyes up as tears threatened once more.

“But at least I have parents,” Nursey finished, with a bitter tone.

“Yeah. And you have money, too. And yet you still applied for the scholarship.”

“Shit.” Nursey leaned his chin on the top of Will’s head. “That was— Look, I know you see me as privileged and entitled, but you’re probably the first person I’ve ever spent a lot of time with who thought that. I grew up around people who were more privileged and more entitled and if not richer, at least in the same class, except that they were usually white. I heard you bring up the scholarship and I thought here we go, here’s another white kid who thinks he’s entitled to the world, and I got angry, because I’ve spent my whole life with people assuming all sorts of things about me and then taking opportunities like that away from me because of those bullshit assumptions. I— I’m sorry. It wasn’t fair to make you feel like you might lose out on the scholarship just because of a rich kid trying to prove a point, but _yes_ you're privileged. And the fact that I'm rich is not the same as you being white. It just isn't. They're not things we can compare. It's not like I get so many privilege points for my parents' incomes, and you get some for the color of your skin and being Christian, and then I get a few more for going to a private school. That's not how it fucking works.”

Will nuzzled closer to Nursey's collarbone. “Sorry,” he croaked.

“You have a lot of privileges, which I don’t know if you always realize,” Nursey continued. Will bit on his lip to stop himself from replying too soon. “I thought you were starting to  _ try  _ but then you go and put a Republican sticker on your laptop and I don’t know what to think of that.”

“I did that because my foster family rang.”

“What?”

“My foster family. When I said I was going to Samwell, it was only ever because of the scholarship, but they still made sure I knew that they didn’t really approve. But that they’d still let me go back there at Christmas, and next summer and see my siblings, because they knew it wasn’t like  _ I  _ was one of— one of ‘those gays’ or anything.”

Nursey sucked in a breath. “That’s why you won’t come out? Because of some asshole—”

“Because my sisters need me. I mean… they're not really my sisters, just foster siblings but I always considered them more than that. I was even there when Chloë was born. But sometimes I worry. At any time, they could stop letting me go back. It’s not like they signed any contract or anything to still have me around after I turned eighteen.”

“So the sticker—” Nursey trailed off, waiting for an explanation.

“I thought if I can go back over break and show them that I got involved in Samwell Republicans, it would be okay. I’m not political. I’ve never had time to even think about it. I guess, yeah, I’m a Republican because that’s what I grew up with the most, and as far as the Buchard family are concerned that’s what they have to think I am. They don’t need to know that I just stole the sticker and that I’m really fucking gay. Of course it makes them assholes that they’d care, but—”

“Okay. I get it. It doesn’t— I’m— I’ll lay off about the whole coming out thing, at least?”

Will let out a sigh, and sat up so that he could look Nursey in the eyes. He had ended up so far down the bed that he had to turn around completely to be able to look at him. “Thank-you. I will try more to understand with the whole privilege thing. And I guess we all have our family issues.”

Nursey sighed. “I don’t have family issues. Not really. Not— But privilege— yeah, if you can understand that. Not just relying on me and Ransom to inform you on issues, or thinking you can get away with ignorance. It’s kind of a privilege you can be unpolitical in the first place.”

Will bit his lip. He hadn’t considered it like that before. “Right. So I’ll read more about it, and educate myself on all the civil rights stuff. And I’m sorry you got treated like that, and that I brought those memories back. That I contributed to that. That I still am. You— You deserve to be appreciated.”

The silence that followed dragged on for so long that Will had to put a hand on Nursey's cheek and turn his head to check if he was crying. He wasn’t, but when their eyes crossed, he offered up a strained smile. “Thanks.”

“Yeah. We, uh, we should go and apologize to Chowder?”

“Mm. Hey, one other thing first? Putting all the blame on me for fights? I know it's self-defense or whatever, but—” He shrugged, and never finished his sentence.

Will shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I don’t know— No, that's a lie, I do know why I did that, but it was shitty and unnecessary. I won’t again, I promise.”

“Thanks. What should we do for Chowder’s birthday?”

“That’s today.”

“And Target should still be open if we take my car.”

Will jumped up suddenly. “Oh my God, they had shark-themed dinnerware last time I was in.”

“Perfect. We could do an aquarium trip, too? I think he’d appreciate it if he thought we were trying to be friends.”

Will pulled a face. “How much does that cost?”

“Okay, so the aquarium trip is  _ my  _ present to Chowder, and I’m paying for us to go and be good friends there, as well. You can buy the shark things.”

“Derek—”

“Will.”

“ _ Fine. _ ”

Nursey smiled smugly. “Good. Now how about I go and pick them up, and you can go to the Haus first. We should probably apologize separately, and no offence but you are the one who left all angrily so you should probably clear the air first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll have the second part up this evening some time, hopefully!


	2. After Hazeapalooza

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In terms of [Fresh](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9337325/chapters/21157367), this fic lines up with [chapter 5](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9337325/chapters/21499523), but it's actually more of a sequel to [Mistake](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9620447). It also repeats a part of [Surprise](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9630857) because it didn't make much sense without that section. (actually it's more accurate to say that I used an extract of this for Surprise).
> 
> Nursey finally tells Dex about his bipolar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings:  
> \- Discussions of bipolar (including paranoia and dissociation)  
> \- Discussions of medication, and mixing medication with alcohol

“Oh, hey,” Skye said, glancing up as Derek walked into their freshman suite after class the day after Hazeapalooza. Derek raised an eyebrow. Skye was the quietest of all the girls in their suite, and he wasn’t sure that she had ever spoken to him directly before. “A girl came by looking for you. I let her into your room.” 

Derek frowned. He wasn’t expecting anybody. Lardo, perhaps?

It wasn’t Lardo sat in Dex’s desk chair and looking incredibly amused as she pushed his pens slightly out of line with each other.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He flips out if I touch his stuff.”

His sister turned to grin at him. “And here I thought you’d learnt not to touch other people’s things after I confiscated Tigger.”

“You didn’t confiscate him, you  _stole_ him, Lei. And I was three, you could have just let me play Barbie with you.”

She laughed, and jumped to her feet to throw her arms around his neck. “I missed you, Der-bear.”

“What are you even doing here?”

Her expression turned to serious when she pulled away. “Shitty rang me.”

It took Derek by surprise, sometimes, that Leila and Shitty were friends. He and his sister hadn’t overlapped at Andover at all, her being five years older than him, but she had been there the same time as Shitty. In fact, she had known him before he became Shitty, and it frustrated Derek no end that she wouldn’t reveal his real name. “What did he ring you for?”

“He said you weren’t doing so well.”

Derek groaned, and backed up so that he could sit on his bed. “I’m doing  _fine._ I stopped sleeping, so I went on the antipsychotics and my first day on them they decided to do hazing. It just took me by surprise, and shit happened, but I’m fine. I’ve been taking benzos, too, just to be sure. It’s all chill”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“I rang my one in Andover.”

Leila sighed and flopped down next to him. “Okay,  _aboowe_ , I’m glad you’re trying to take care of yourself, but you do need to get a doctor closer to here, and you need to let other people look after you properly when something happens.”

“It’s chill.”

“It’s okay if it’s not, though,” she told him. “And I’m serious about the doctor. If only because it’s ridiculous to have to drive up to Andover every time you need a prescription.”

Derek let his head come to rest on his sister’s shoulder and breathed out a sigh. “Okay.”

“Promise me you won’t deal with all of this on your own.”

“I promise. There’s a few people now, on the team, who know at least bits and pieces.”

“Including your roommate?”

“Er, no. Dex doesn’t know anything.”

“You know it’ll be easier if he does.”

Derek didn’t know what to say. Leila had no idea of the relationship between him and Dex, and trying to explain the complexities of how they got along, or the way that there was only a small collection of things Derek could actually  _talk_ to Dex about, was impossible.

When he didn’t respond, she just knocked her shoulder against his and pulled his laptop onto her knees, guessed his password right on the second try and brought up Netflix. Derek tried to remember the last time things were so calm and simple between he and Leila. Childhood had been arguments and tension and the constant feeling of being overshadowed. Even at Andover, the upperclassmen had all looked at him and immediately said “You’re Lei’s brother.” That had become his persona for two years until everyone who had known her had graduated. Derek wondered if what fixed their relationship was just them growing up or him finally going to a school where the only person who knew her was Shitty.

“I’m glad you came,” he muttered, and when she looked at him, he could see she wasn’t expecting him to say anything like that.

“Of course I did. You’re my baby brother. It wasn’t too bad a surprise, then?”

“Nah.”

* * *

They watched a film, and then two episodes of Brooklyn Nine Nine, and then Dex walked in. As Leila scrambled to cover her hair with the scarf she had abandoned on his pillow, Derek tensed. They had barely spoken the past couple of days — not since before Hazeapalooza. Dex didn’t look over at Derek’s bed as he strode across the room and dropped his bag in its place under his desk. He froze, head bowed over the desk, then a shaking hand came up to slowly fix the crooked pens. He turned back to Derek, eyes narrowed.

“That was her,” Derek said quickly, pointing at Leila.

“You always were a tattle-tale. Hi. I’m Leila. Sorry about that. He was late.”

Dex looked between them. “Derek’s sister, right?”

“That’s me!”

“He didn’t say you were going to be visiting.”

Derek scoffed. “Ch’yeah, you need to talk to me for—”

“Well, to be quite honest, I didn’t tell him, either,” Leila interrupted

Dex flexed his hand. “Oh. Just… I mean, no offence or anything but I kind of thought you two didn’t really—”

Leila snapped her head towards Derek. “What the hell have you told him?”

“Nothing about you!” Dex said quickly, hands up in surrender. “Just about your parents, and—”

Derek sucked in a breath. “Shit. Shut up, Dex.”

“What did you say?” Leila asked in Gujarati.

Derek flinched. “Nothing, just— Fuck.”

“Tell me,” she demanded of Dex.

“That they forgot his birthday,” he replied.

Derek flinched. “Lei, it’s not—”

“You ungrateful little brat,” she snapped, and he shut up.

“Is that not—?” Dex looked bewildered now.

“Ever since I went to Andover we’ve celebrated birthdays in the school holidays,” she told him, then continued in Somali for Derek’s sake, “And Diri knows better than to use mental illness as an excuse to be a dick about it.” Derek sunk backwards in shame.

Dex blinked. “That was a different language.”

The comment made Derek snort. “Yeah, ‘cause she doesn’t know how to say mental illness in Gujarati. That’s something we’ve only ever talked about in English or Somali.”

“Mental— What— How many languages do you speak?”

“English, Gujarati, Arabic, some Somali and AP Spanish,” Derek listed off.

“Oh my God, AP Spanish doesn’t count, you nerd,” Leila interrupted. “And fucking tell him before I do, because you need someone who can keep an eye on you so that the shit show of Monday night doesn’t happen again. You notice he wasn’t sleeping?” She pointed at Dex, whose eyes were bulging out their sockets.

“Uh… Maybe, yeah, I guess. But I didn’t think— That’s just college, though.”

She huffed. “Yeah, for some students it might be. Where’s your bathroom?”

Derek sighed and pointed the way she needed to go. When she had slammed the door behind her, he spent a few seconds pulling at the blankets where she had been sat. Finally, he looked up to meet Dex’s eye. “I’m sorry I lied about my parents. That’s not why that birthday sucked, but it was always the easier thing to say. It’s always what I told everyone else, and soon as I knew the truth about yours, going back on what I’d said seemed like it would hurt you more. I can’t— I don’t want you to think I’m a mess if I tell you.”

“I already think you’re a complete train-wreck, Nursey, it’s okay.” An amused smirk played on his lips, but he quickly seemed to realize it was the wrong thing to say, because he got up and took up Leila’s vacated spot on the bed. “Shit, I don’t mean that. I mean, you let me think you had shitty parents just because mine are dead, which is a bit messed up, but whatever it is, you can tell me, okay? No judgement.”

“I don’t know how to—” Derek shook his head and fell silent.

“Why don’t you start with what happened on Monday night. At Hazeapalooza, does she mean? You weren’t even drinking that much, so—”

“Yeah, but I was on pills that I’m not supposed to drink  _anything_ with. Well, technically, the ones I take every day say not to drink with them, but I know my limits with them normally and I can work around it. When I’m taking the extra lot I can’t. I got paranoid quicker, and dizzy and shit which didn’t help. But, uh, the short of it is that I have bipolar. And recently I’ve been slipping into a manic episode, so— Uh. Yeah, so that’s a thing, and now you know.”

Dex reached out and wrapped his hand around Derek’s. “What, uh… What exactly does that mean? For you. If you don’t— I mean, I can Google symptoms and stuff if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Right. Yeah. Uh, well before I was on medication, it got really bad. I used to hallucinate. It was like someone was sat there telling me to do things, and I had no sense of why it was a bad idea. There was this one time I was absolutely convinced that me and my friends would be able to go clubbing even though we were fifteen and none of us had fake ID. Mostly back then it was compulsively buying things, booking holidays, that sort of shit. I don’t sleep, and just feel really pumped up. I could do anything.”

“But Monday—”

“Monday we fought, and then I found out something I shouldn’t, and I got about as stressed as is possible for me. I hit a limit and it’s like my brain short circuits, and I dissociate. It’s like having an out of body experience, but… less spiritual or whatever. It wasn’t too bad. Shitty sort of knew what was going on, and caught it early. The further I’m into it, the harder it is to get me out, but Monday I was aware. I don’t think I even lost any time.”

Dex frowned and rubbed his thumb over Derek’s knuckles. “How long can it last, then?”

“I’ve lost three days before. I woke up on Monday thinking that it was Friday. The whole weekend had just gone. The longest I’d count as normal for me is a couple of hours, though, if I’m on lithium.”

“And bipolar… That’s swings, right? So you have, uh… downs? As well?”

“Depressive episodes. I guess I have a few months of mania and then some time of just normal, and then a few months of depression. But I’m on mood stabilisers, so you shouldn’t have to worry about that happening.”

“Let me know if it does, though. Please? You’re my d-man, I’ve gotta have your back. I won’t ghost you again, I promise. I just— it’s hard to fight with you when we can’t get any space from each other to cool down after. But me having your back is more important than a stupid little fight.”

Derek sighed and rested his head on Dex’s shoulder. “Okay. Thank-you. I will. Let you know, that is.” He felt the brush of Dex’s lips over his forehead and he smiled softly.

“So everything’s okay?” Dex asked, “With your parents?”

“They’re the best. They’re both coming to family weekend, actually, so you’ll meet them.”

After a moment’s silence, Dex spoke again. “AP Spanish definitely doesn’t count. I did that, too, and got a 5 and I only count myself as speaking one language. It’s like knowing a bit of ASL doesn’t count. I couldn’t hold up a conversation with a native speaker.”

“Are you saying you know ASL?”

“Not much. Most people can at least do the alphabet, right?”

Derek shrugged. “You wanna take Spanish with me next semester? Get the language requirement out the way?”

“Couldn’t you just take Arabic?”

“It’s more interesting if I get to learn something new. We only have to do one course of it if we got a 5, right?”

“Your sister’s right, you’re a nerd.”

Derek grinned and snuggled into Dex’s neck. After a pause, Dex tugged on him so that Derek ended up in his lap, and lay back against the wall, cradling him in his arms.

“Tell me what helps?”

Derek hummed. “This is helping. Touch. It’s grounding. I have my blanket and Tigger for that too. Reminders to eat and drink and take my pills are important but I’ll probably get irritated with you for not trusting me to remember them on my own. It depends on my mood, I guess. But… Yeah. This is helping a lot.” He suppressed a yawn. Dex’s lips brushed against his forehead, and Derek lifted his chin for a proper kiss.

They sprang apart when Leila walked back in, Derek tripping over himself to get out of Dex’s lap, but she regarded them both with a discerning look and shrugged. “Hey, I’m not going to judge what you two get up to in your own bedroom. I’m craving Thai.”

“Okay, let’s go get food.” Derek pulled himself up off the bed, and looked back at Dex. “Are you coming?”

“Uh, no, I told Chowder I’d meet him at dinner so we can work on some coding. Uh, and I think I need a bit of time to process. Research. Stuff like that.”

Derek nodded and walked away without saying anything else. He wasn’t sure how to handle the fact that he really wanted to kiss Dex again to say goodbye. That wasn’t something they did.


End file.
